The Daily Beast takes on the Men’s Rights movement — and takes down A Voice for Men’s John Hembling

The bad publicity bonanza for Men’s Rights activists continues — and it couldn’t happen to a worse group of people.

Yesterday, the Daily Beast published a long-awaited piece on the Men’s Rights movement, and it’s a doozy. If you’re a regular reader of this site, trust me, you’ll want to read the whole thing, like now. The piece, by R. Tod Kelly, is long — some 6000 words — but worth it.

It’s mostly on the money, but with a few notable flaws.

Here’s what it gets right:

1) It captures the pervasive misogyny of the Men’s Rights movement in general, and of A Voice for Men in particular.

2) In an extended section, it profiles AVFM’s John Hembling, and tears apart some of his most blatant lies — including the now legendary box-cutter incident, in which Hembling claims to have stared down a mob of 20-30 feminists brandishing boxcutters.

As Kelly notes:

Vancouver police records show that there was indeed an altercation in September of 2012 between Hembling and others seeking to tear down men’s rights posters. However, according to the police, Hembling was arguing with two or three people, not being accosted by a “mob” of any size. When questioned by the authorities, neither Hembling nor witnesses mentioned seeing any weapons. …

Curiously enough, Hembling actually videotaped the events and had his AV4M Radio partner Karen Straughan post it online. The discussion with the police has been conveniently edited out, but the rest of the video clearly matches police records and not Hembling’s story. There are only a few young men taking down Hembling’s posters, and the video shows them choosing to ignore him except when he engages them in conversation. One of the men is seen using a box cutter to take down the flyers, but at no time does he use it as a weapon, raise his voice, or threaten Hembling in any way.

Kelly found some troubling, er, discrepancies in another story told by Hembling. Kelly writes:

According to Hembling, sometime around 1995 he was on his way home at 2:00 am after working a night shift when he came upon [a sexual] assault in progress. He says he used his steel-toed boots as weapons to chase off the perpetrator. When the victim was too distraught to speak with him, Hembling says he contacted the police, waited until they arrived, and then quietly left without speaking to them. He says they later tracked him down at his home, where he gave a statement.

It’s hard to know whether this event actually occurred or not. There is no record—at least, not in the Vancouver police files—of Hembling being a material witness to a rape, and police blotters from that time period do not show a crime that matches Hembling’s description. However, this does not necessarily mean the event did not occur. Vancouver police did not fully computerize their data until 2002, and it is possible the police never reported the incident. Hembling claims the incident took place at a specific hospital, where he says he worked as a contractor for 18 months. The address he gives, however, is for a different hospital in a completely different part of the city. This raises the curious question of whether Hembling forget the name of the hospital he contracted with for 18 months, or whether he forget what part of the city he worked in for that same period of time. The real truth of the matter is anyone’s guess, because Hembling wouldn’t comment to The Beast on that or any other matter.

In other words: Cool story, bro.

3) Another thing the story gets right: it makes clear just how little the Men’s Rights movement does to actually help men — and how in many ways it can actually be terribly damaging to men who need real help. As Kelly writes,

the movement’s radicals might … do … immediate damage to those who most desperately need the MRM to succeed.

“When we talk about recovery from trauma and abuse, there were two things that helped me,” says Chris Anderson, executive director of the male-victim advocacy group Male Survivor and a sexual abuse survivor himself. “The first was realizing that I’m not alone; the second was hearing that recovery was possible.” Anderson is quick to dissociate himself from the men’s rights movement: “In [the MRM] people get that first message, that they’re not alone. I don’t know that they ever get the second message. And when they don’t get that second message, it turns into an endless feedback loop and eventually they say, ‘Oh my God, all of society is f**ked.’”

Indeed, Kelly writes:

It is telling to note that of the professional male-victim advocacy organizations I spoke with, every single one specifically asked that I not allow readers to think they were in any way related to the MRM.

But there are also some things that I think the article gets wrong.

1) I think it gives Men’s Rights activists way too much credit for their supposed good intentions. While there are some MRAs who do seem to be motivated at least in part by a sincere desire to help men, most of the MRAs I’ve encountered in the 3 years of doing this blog have clearly been motivated primarily by anger and hatred of feminists — and women in general. They don’t really seem to give a shit about doing anything to actually improve the lives of men — and the paucity of their accomplishments reflects this. In its relatively brief lifespan, AVFM has raised many hundreds of thousands of dollars. Has it set up any shelters or hotlines or helplines for men? Not a one.

2) It wildly exaggerates the importance of Hembling to the MRM — especially ironic given thatHembling has been more or less AWOL in recent months, producing only a few short videos and one article for AVFM.

I was, however, kind of amazed to learn that Price is married … and to a feminist. No, really.

4) The article, while solidly researched, contains some small errors and simplifications that will no doubt give MRAs and others the excuse they need to dismiss the whole thing. Kelly refers to Reddit subreddits as Reddit “threads!” He refers to Matt Forney as an MRA! Oh no!

Still, whatever its flaws, this is an important piece, and one that tells a lot of truth about the Men’s Rights movement. Again — go read it!

Comments

Clearly the White Knights of the Order of the Beboob’d Man would have the ability to break apart into their component ferrets when under threat, but how would that work?

You transform from a single creature to a swarm with the same HP and size. You lose all attacks and special abilities, but automatically deal damage to anyone who ends their turn in one of the squares you occupy.

You transform from a single creature to a swarm with the same HP and size. You lose all attacks and special abilities, but automatically deal damage to anyone who ends their turn in one of the squares you occupy

Plus, you gain a mild reduction in incoming damage from single target weaponry like swords, bows and other things, but take more damage from splash effects like fire in an area.

(and anyone you cover at the end of your turn has to make a con save against your distraction, modified by your current cutesy levels, in order to avoid being staggered on their turn, we can recite swarm statblocks from D&D 3.5 without referencing the books screw spider swarms, screw ’em, they be the doom of adventurers they be)

Thanks Ophelia! (more hugs) I told my doctor and she told me to increase my tricyclics — the ones that make me really really blaaaaaaaaah. I was dubious but tried it once and spent the next day zombified with a massive headache. Yeah, I won’t be doing that again. I fucking hate tricyclics.

That sucks :/ Internet hugs from me, if you want them.

@radical parrot

@marie: Seconding kitteh and ophelia. You always say the right things.

Thanks :3

One could say it’s… (puts on sunglasses) a hostile world. (YEEEEAAAAAAH!)

Okay, you guys started it! Here are some ideas I’ve been working on (all is up for debate, I suck at stats and stuff):

I started out by making the straw feminists a class, but realized I lacked the skill and patience to crunch the numbers and balance things. I was also unsure of what system I would want to play this on (I love D&D 3.5, but fairly recently I got into Pathfinder, which I might like even better. Then again, I also love freeform with an emphasis on role-playing, mystery and riddle-solving, so a more flexible system might also be in order), so I decided to just work on the campaign world and decide on the mechanics later.

In this version, the feminazis and the straw feminists are indeed two distinctly different factions. The former are the lawful evil ruler types. They tolerate men, but treat them as little more than chattel in the regions they rule. The latter want to eliminate all men. They believe in a world free of men, where all women conquer death through lichendom* and live forever. Or something. They both fit into the straw feminist stereotype (let’s face it, it’s not internally consistent), but take two drastically different approaches to it. Of course, guerilla groups exist as well.

Whereas I’m treating “strawfeminism” as some kind of a curse of the mind in this world, the MRA brothers-in-arms are a humoristic look at the pompous, arrogant ideas the MRAs have of themselves. They could well be a class that emphasises super masculine ideas, but in an ironic way. Haven’t worked out all the details yet, but an MRA BiA might well make a fun character for the sheer stupidity of it all.

The mountains to the north (haven’t thought of a good name yet, sorry) hide a mythical, indestructible, unmovable tree, the tree of FREEZEPEACH, whose permanently frozen fruits grant its eater powers far beyond those of mere mortals (we’re talking about serious resistance to damage and magic, especially spells of the mind). However, the effects are only temporary, so the FREEZEPEACH must be carefully guarded in order to secure a steady stream of peaches. Many factions fight for the possession of this mighty plant.

Because of its powerful secret, the regions around the mountains are home to a permanent pest to Misandria: trolls. These critters come in all shapes and sizes, from tiny goblins to immensely destructive and durable greattrolls. A troll’s battle tactics include (but are not limited to) evading attacks, bluffing and outright lying, moving goalposts for some reason, but mostly on wearing out the opposition. Some trolls also know a bit of magic, and have confusion as an at-will power. However, the most powerful ability of a troll is regeneration, which allows them to come back from even the most savage beating.

Nobody truly knows what these creatures are or where they originated. Some say they were once human, but degenerated into beings of chaos and discord by the very same forces that have taken over the minds of straw feminists and their kind. Others claim that trolls are not even truly their own creatures, but rather physical manifestations of an ancient god, a trickster deity long forgotten. Even most trolls don’t seem to know their purpose, which causes internal turmoil and may be a leading cause in their seemingly erratic behaviour. Curiously enough, many trolls smell strongly of socks.

Whatever they are, humans have long since adapted to trolls. A lot of idioms and figures of speech in Misandria somehow involve trolls. For instance, “trollface” refers to a facial expression that signals that someone is up to no good; “stop trolling” is something mischievous children often hear, etc.

The only things trolls truly fear are fire, acid and, of course, the mighty Banhammer, favored weapon of the Dark Lord David, the natural enemy of trolls. One strike of his divine weapon has been known to forever banish all but the mightiest troll (like the legendary Pell, who somehow keeps coming back in different forms).

Legend has it that David was once a mortal man who ascended to divinity through a polymorph spell and an obscure loophole in the rules of ascension (can you believe the rules said nothing about ferrets in a cat suit?). It is said that a piece of the Dark Lord’s consciousness lives in the mind of everyone who follows him. He is all Manbobzers. Concentrated effort on the behalf of a group of Manboobzers may sometimes summon an avatar of David**, who naturally wields the Banhammer.

A man known simply as John once attempted to copy David’s tactic with another kind of animal. It didn’t end well, because the loophole had been fixed in the meantime. Now he’s an otter.

*As the previously mentioned Dwor-Kin. I originally named the lich drow-kin, as a nod to the D&D race of evil, matriarchal dark elves, but reasoned that not all would get the reference.

And yeah, @Radical Parrot, thank you for that Otter Incident. Good pun. I mean one. I mean pun.
—

Now for a council of Eldersluts… humdedeee…
—

The Wall was an force fashioned at the dawn of time to separate the world from the stream of time, to allow linearity, progression, and differences, to make things just static enough for some specks of matter to align and grow into the world we have today.

What lay on the other side of The Wall? Who knows. Impossible to cross, metaphysical and metaphorical more than real, the only glimpses any particularly curious thaumaturge hellbent on chronologically inspired endeavors might gleam would be an endless shifting wasteland, stretching into infinity, isolated from the rest of the world. People weren’t meant to look at the results of Time and weren’t meant to look beyond the Wall. Not deterent enough, as it turned out.

For some souls did breach the Wall, eventually. They threw themselves adrift in Time itself, and became something else. The ELDERSLUTS, vast, unknowable entitties of sluttitude, attitude and pulchritude, guarded by the fearsome Felines of Thindalos, those cat-like things that purr and paw throughout the angles of time.

It is said if you catch their attention, you will never be free… from this… purring.
The finding of cat hairs in your clothes.FOREVER

Many years ago, there was a blog site that regularly challenged the men’s rights/fathers rights crowd. That’s where I initially found about their concerted efforts to close down DV shelters as “discriminatory.” I once got into an exchange with these guys about a shelter for men. Of course they were doing lots of whining and lying. I challenged them to visit the homeless men’s shelters and gather data on how many were there for domestic violence. They didn’t want to (the number, according to the research, would have been very low, and most of them would have been young gay men.) They wanted to get federal grants. I took a gamble, and told them I was a professional grant writer who had written successful federal grant proposals in the past. I said I would provide FREE technical support, if they could gather the needs data for their town/city. Some women emailed me privately to express their horror. But I told them not to worry. And sure enough, these lazy lying @$$holes never followed up with me. So much for their concern for all those men made homeless by all those mean battering women out there. In reality, of course, there are lots of homeless men, usually for reasons related to drugs/alcohol/mental illness combined with low wage jobs/high rents. But the MR/FR crowd has no interest in dealing with additional funding for social services or addressing affordable housing/low wages.

@silverside, That is an entirely unsurprising story. They would much rather just be outraged than actually do something to help men. The only time they’re motivated to actually do things is if they can hurt women. 0_o

I have a sick train watching fascination with MRA types and the man-o-sphere in general. And I’l admit: It’s because I need constant reminders of the bitter, entitled 35 year old I could have become, had I not grown the fuck up and taken responsibility for my own life.

We Hunted the Mammoth tracks and mocks the white male rage underlying the rise of Trump and Trumpism. This blog is NOT a safe space; given the subject matter -- misogyny and hate -- there's really no way it could be.